China Gives U.s. Reporter Hasty Exit

PEKING — American reporter Lawrence MacDonald was expelled Friday because his news agency refused to transfer him out of China as had been requested by the government.

Chinese police called MacDonald at his Peking apartment at 7 a.m. Friday, summoned him to an 8 a.m. meeting, read him an expulsion order and immediately drove him to the airport and put him on a plane to Hong Kong.

MacDonald, 32, from San Luis Obispo, Calif., was given no time to pack and carried only his passport. His wife, Hannah Moore, and members of the Agence France-Presse bureau, where MacDonald worked, were not allowed to talk to him as he left.

MacDonald said he believed his expulsion and the arrest of a Chinese student charged with secret collusion with him were ''part of an effort to intimidate foreign journalists and the Chinese citizens with whom they come in contact.